Terminal Illness
by FoxTrax
Summary: After Tails performs a selfless act to save Sonic's life during a climactic battle in outer space, he is left with only days to live. In this difficult time, while the two friends learn to cope together, Tails ends up on a final adventure, during which he becomes the embodiment of what courage truly is. (All reviews are appreciated.)


_**Well, well, well. It's my birthday again. I'm sixteen now. And for the second year in a row, I'm uploading a chapter of a remake of the fanfiction concept I had back in October 2011. This is now rewrite number THREE.**_

_**Yep, that's right. Another fricking rewrite. I just won't stop killing this dead horse. Or something. Don't worry, though. I've got another project to fall back on if this doesn't work. I also review Archie Sonic comics and SatAM episodes on my blogspot, if you wanna check those out. But yeah, after a few months, I was infuriated with how the second edition of TTLB came out. It was short, filled with plotholes, and overall missed out on a lot of its potential. Above all else, I regretted not putting in more of Sonic's friends. In fact, there were only three characters in the whole thing! THREE! How did I even do that?! But, yeah, consider this TTLB as it should've been. Or, if you prefer, "To the Last Breath DX: Director's Cut". **_

_**As you probably noticed, I ditched the original title for something more fitting. Also, to make the characterization leap off the page more, most of the fanfic, but not all, will be read from Sonic's point of view. For those that didn't read either of the other versions of this story (first off, you are very fortunate), I hope this is to your liking. If I don't hit every emotion I can possibly convey, then I haven't done my job.  
**_

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(Sonic's POV)

I sighed to myself as I pulled down one more page from the "Joke-A-Day" calendar I kept on my nightstand. I had dreaded having to do this today. In fact, it took me a while to muster up the courage to reach across the bed. But I eventually forced myself to rip off the front page from the daily calendar. On the next page, these words were written in big, bold font:

**FRIDAY**

**DECEMBER 21ST, 2012**

"_Wow. One year. One whole year,_" I thought to myself.

I kept staring at that page on the calendar, remembering that for the sake of good taste, I had crossed out the joke of the day well in advance with permanent black marker. I was just finding it hard to come to terms. Exactly one year had passed since that day that changed my life forever. There were a few points during the year that, admittedly, I thought I wouldn't even make it that far before I lost my marbles. We were all shocked and saddened by the loss, but gradually, we all helped ourselves get over it, and I can't thank them enough for that. I gradually learned to live with my loss, but it's been a frustrating uphill climb. This isn't exactly something I'd had experience with before, and I hope to whoever's out there that I don't gain **any** more.

Usually, a quick morning jog around the city help get my mind off things. By this time, on any other given day, you'd find me zooming by on one of the highways in Station Square to try and clear my head. But on this particular day, I just felt no urge to go out. For the first time in quite a while, I could not bring myself to move even a single muscle. My eyes were almost hypnotically stuck on that small daily calendar on my nightstand. It's strange, I know, but there was something...I don't know..._mysterious_ about it that kept my gaze in that direction. As I just sat there, nearly-motionless, my eyes must've slowly drifted over to the right...right where I also kept a framed photograph we took a few years back, which featured me, the loyal copilot and navigator, posing in front of our plane, the Tornado, alongside its fearless captain, decked out in a cute-looking pilot getup. When my brain suddenly registered the image, it hit me like a big bag of bricks.

_Hey, wait a minute...Tails gave me this calendar, didn't he?_

Yeah, he did! As the year passed and I kept tearing pages off that thing day by day, I must've forgotten where it came from. But I started to remember that, yes, this was his gift. Right after we got back from fighting the Time Eater on my birthday! After those past versions of Tails and myself (or "mini-us", as I ended up calling them) went back to their own time period, Tails, by which I mean the present version, took me back home and showed me this gift.

What's funny is, I kept telling my friends about a month before my birthday, "Hey, a chili dog would be more than enough. A chili dog would be about as good a gift as twelve Chaos Emeralds. That's all I ask for, guys." But that wasn't enough for Tails. He always felt like he had to go the extra mile on my birthday. Every year, he made sure he got me at least two gifts, one of which he was guaranteed to have built himself.

Ah, that was just classic Tails, all the way...

You know, I've spent the whole year mourning, but it wasn't until that very moment that I stopped to ask myself the most obvious question: _How could this kid...this kid I found lying face-down in the Mystic Ruins on some random rainy day six years back, this kid with an unexplainable genetic mutation...wriggle so deeply into my heart?_

While I cared deeply for this kid, I didn't think much of our friendship by the time we had just met each other. I figured he was just happy that I gave him a home, companionship, and a place to tinker with some small gadgets, but that he would just forget about me in a few months and just run off and go on to change the world with his inventions, or something, and that I would continue on saving other small animals from their metal prisons.

But no. Our of nowhere, the Egg Crab incident happened. And it changed my life for good. My memory of that whole thing is pretty fuzzy, considering that it happened about four years back, and I ended up with a severe brain injury, or so the doctors told me, so I only remember it from the vague mental pictures burned into my head.

Pictures of being knocked out of the sky by a robotic crab arm.

Of being unable to move as this giant mechanical crab towered over me.

The only thing I remember hearing was "Enjoy the explosion, hedgehog!" Definitely Eggman.

True to Eggman's word (heh, four words I rarely get the chance to say together), there was indeed an explosion.

For a second or two, I was wrapped in a blanket of heat, flying shrapnel, and blinding colors. Though the colors may have been just a figment of my damaged cranium.

And then...this familiar two-tailed silhouette came in out of the corner of my eye.

The only thing I physically felt during the whole thing was Tails completely smothering me to shield me from the flying debris, making a surprisingly soft, furry cushion for me. Not to sound creepy; this is what I was thinking at the time. I was delusional, I was seconds away from unconsciousness, and I didn't realize until later that it was him who shielded me.

By the time I had returned to the land of the living, a day and a half had passed, the doctors performed emergency surgery, and Tails was lying in the hospital bed next to mine. Thing is, he actually had it worse off than _**I**_ did! There were small wounds, stitches and big, ugly, black spots all over his fur. And yet all I heard from him was, "Are you all right?!", "I was so worried about you!", and the like. And as I stayed over for a couple of nights for observation (against my will, I might add), I got to thinking, "_My god...the little guy really __**does**__ look up to me, doesn't he? If he unashamedly saved my life like that...I must be more than a friend to him after all..."_

From then, things changed. The rest of our time together must've gone by like a pair of blue and orange blurs. There were so many battles with Dr. Eggman that I can't sort them all out from memory. There were more than a few quick races around the city, which I hate to admit, he actually cut my lead down to half-a-second by the end. And then, there were all those spontaneous interviews for TV and radio where we were caught on the spot, and while I usually had a lot to say, Tails was always slinking off-camera, admiring all the TV networks' fancy audiovisual equipment.

He wasn't the kind of guy who liked to soak up all the attention. And yes, this fox always had a passion for mechanics. The irony always struck me, that this fox who found a way to use his genetic mutation to fly was more focused on using machines to reach the air, but the thing I regret above all else is this. Ever since he managed fixed up the old, beaten-up biplane I impulsively decided to purchase at a police auction, I could never have even imagine how he became almost masterful at his hobby. By the end, I had been exposed to so many of his inventions that the question just kinda dropped out of my head. He took that secret to his grave, intentionally or not.

But no matter what, despite what most of the public might have seen, he and I were nearly inseparable. People always think of me as this cool, cocky loner guy who makes random appearances to save the say when necessary. And while part of that is true, I'm anything but a loner. At least, not since I met him. Between Knuckles' stubborn, ever-changing demeanor as an eternal guardian, Amy and her attempts to get over her obsession with me, and Cream's childlike innocence, Tails was the first guy who I really opened up to. My experiences with Tails had taught me how to forge friendships with others. But there was something different about this one with Tails. Something...special. If you gave me a thousand years, I couldn't pinpoint what exactly it was that brought us so close together, but the way we opened up to each other, trusted each other, defended each other with our lives, and treated each other as equals...I guess all that set us apart. We were more than friends. In fact, in a way, we might've been...brothers.

As soon as I reached the end of my personal Memory Lane, my eyes re-opened, still facing that daily calendar. And I suddenly thought of something Cream said to me seven months ago, after she heard me make one too many impulsive, snippy remarks under my breath about what I was going through. As I left, she told me, "I like you, Mr. Sonic, but...you're not as fun to be with anymore. The smile's all gone."

It took major guts for her to say that to my face, and I've respected her for it. And she hit the nail on the head. In a way, all of our smiles left along with his. There were innocent children who'd never had to deal with the concept of death before, who had to suffer through what we did. But judging by what I've seen, I still think I've been hit the hardest. Every day of that year, it...it just felt so empty.

No more of those times when he'd pull me aside to motor-mouth about his new invention.

No more of that cute, sheepish gesture he made whenever I told him I was proud of him.

No more of that omni-present whap-whap-whap sound of his tails in motion, following me almost everywhere I went.

No more of those times where he'd just pause for a few minutes, motionless, not saying a word, as he absorbed the beauty of whatever he was seeing.

No more of that embarassingly cute smile and the infectious laughter he shared with me countless times.

And it all started with MEAD.


End file.
